Here’s what happens when you go 34-3, reach the NCAA Tournament four straight years, have a head coach who mentored the Fab Five, sell out a 12,414-seat arena in August and have a pipeline to star basketball players from Sacramento.

You get Malik Pope.

The five-star forward told UT San Diego on Wednesday night that he is orally committing to San Diego State, just days after he visited Kansas during Midnight Madness festivities at Allen Fieldhouse and a few weeks before he was supposed to visit Gonzaga. Also among his nine finalists: Arizona, UCLA, USC, Washington, Oregon and Cal.

“I’m expecting us to be really good,” Pope said by phone. “I’m setting the bar really high for the future.

The 6-foot-9 Pope from Elk Grove’s Laguna Creek High is the No. 17 player in the class of 2014 according to Rivals.com, which would make him the highest-rated prep signee in SDSU history. Winston Shepard was No. 21 in 2012, and Kawhi Leonard No. 48 in 2009.

The first day recruits can sign a binding letter of intent is Nov. 13.

That yet another star player from the Sacramento area is picking the Aztecs should hardly come as a surprise. Pope would be the fifth in five years, joining Chase Tapley from last season’s team, senior point guard Xavier Thames and freshmen Dakarai Allen and D’Erryl Williams.

“They are buddies from way back when,” Pope said of Allen and Williams. “They definitely encouraged me.”

Pope fractured his leg in February, rehabbed it and returned to the court over the summer, only to break it again in early September and have pins surgically inserted. That reduced his appearances on the club circuit and likely will scrap his senior season in high school, but apparently not his prospects at the next level.

LeRohn Dodson, his club coach at Team Superstar, has been around AAU ball for 18 years and worked with two dozen future NBA players. And says: “He’s just as talented as any of them.”

Despite measuring 6-9 in bare feet and still growing, Pope is a natural 3-man with deep range on his jumper, ball-handling skills of a guard and that effortless explosion in the paint that only the most gifted athletes possess.

Pope said he initially expected some schools to temper their recruitment after his surgery. One that didn’t was SDSU. Assistant coach Justin Hutson, who had been recruiting Pope at UNLV before rejoining the Aztecs’ staff in April, flew to Sacramento a few days later to re-assert their interest.

“I trusted the (SDSU) coaches.” Pope said. “It’s just a different feeling there, rather than a place where it’s just basketball. Say a player gets injured. A school like San Diego State doesn’t just drop the ball and recruit another player. They try to get their family member back in the game.”

Added Dodson: “They always made him a priority, and they did that from the beginning. Kansas, Gonzaga, UCLA did a good job recruiting him. But San Diego State did a better job recruiting him. After his injury they recruited him even harder, and that was important to him. He’s a really loyal kid.”